1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus having a broadcast receiving function and particularly to a method for displaying an electronic program guide in an electronic apparatus having a function of receiving television or radio broadcast.
2. Description of the Related Art
In television broadcast, such as BS broadcast and CS broadcast, electronic program guide information is combined with a television broadcast signal and an electronic program guide is displayed on a television screen based on the information. By referring to the electronic program guide, a user can search for a desired program among programs to be broadcast or check the contents of the program. Also, the user can set the recording of a program on a video recorder or the like based on the electronic program guide information.
In a television receiver, an electronic program guide as shown in FIG. 8 is displayed on the screen based on electronic program guide information. In FIG. 8, the time of broadcast is shown in the vertical axis, broadcast stations (channels) are shown in the horizontal axis, and the names of programs and summarized contents thereof are shown in the matrix. In FIG. 8, the name of program broadcasted by each broadcast station in a time slot of 20:00 is shown.
A method for presenting additional service information to such an electronic program guide is disclosed in Patent Document 1: PCT Japanese Translation Patent Publication No. 2002-532025, for example. In the method according to Patent Document 1, an advertisement window is added in a screen of the electronic program guide, or menu buttons including a sports button, a news button, and a hometown button are added in the screen of the electronic program guide. When a user presses these buttons, the television tuner is automatically tuned so that the user can obtain sports or news information.
However, the following problems exist in the known method for displaying an electronic program guide. In the electronic program guide shown in FIG. 8, the user can know only the summary of a program to be broadcasted of each channel. Therefore, the user cannot know which scene is currently being broadcasted in each channel and he/she has to check the contents of the program by switching channels. In other words, the known electronic program guide does not provide sufficient information for channel selection to the user. On the other hand, in the above-mentioned Patent Document, the user can select a desired program in the electronic program guide screen, but he/she cannot know the progress of a currently broadcasted program of each channel in this screen.